tablishment, Rufus and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched
entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Video, proboque meliora,
Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV

AT THE BATHS.

Nothing can give one a more striking conception of Roman life under the
Empire than the size, number, and magnificence of the public baths.
Those of Caracalla are a typical example. They covered an area of
fifteen hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the surrounding
grounds being a mile in circumference. They formed a perfect wilderness
of stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the very mouldering
remains of which strike one with astonishment. Of this very structure,
the poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus Unbound," remarks:
"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths
of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous
blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon
its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Piers of
sold masonry soar aloft like towers, on the summit of which good-sized
trees are growing. Climbing one of those massive towers, the present
writer enjoyed a glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the
crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure
all around, and of the far spreading and desolate Campagna.

The great hypocausts, or subterranean furnaces, can be still examined,
as also the caleducts in the walls for hot air, and the metal pipes for
hot and cold water. The baths were supplied by an aqueduct constructed
for that purpose, the arches of which may be seen bestriding the
Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from the city. There were hot,
and cold, and tepid baths, _caldaria_, or sweating chambers,
_frigidaria_, or cooling rooms, _unctoria_, or anointing rooms, and many
others sufficient to accommodate sixteen hundred bathers at once. There
were also a vast gymnasium for exercise, a _stadium_, or race-course,
and a _pinacotheca_, or art gallery. Here were found the famous Farnese
Bull, the largest group of ancient statuary extant, and many _chefs
d'oeuvre_ of classic sculpture and mosaics.

The Baths of Diocletian, built by the labours of the Christians during
the last great persecution, one authority says, were twice as large, and
could accommodate eighteen thousand bathers in a day, but th